Despite Denial, Iranian Assassination Plot Was Hatched at the Top

by Reza Kahlili

Iran says it will soon publish over a hundred documents proving American terror attacks in Iran and the region, in yet another frantic attempt at damage control over its own plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington.

The announcement was made last week by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who earlier this year approved a strategy at a secret meeting with top regime officials to confront Saudi Arabia, weaken America's posture internationally, and rally the radical elements within the Islamic world.

The strategy accepted the risk of confrontation with the United States. That strategy led to the assassination plot, which included bombing the Israeli and Saudi embassies.

Meanwhile, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami in Friday's prayer sermon promised the same fate for the Saudi monarch as former Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi's and former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's.

Also, the Iranian Parliament, in a statement issued Wednesday, strongly supported the Revolutionary Guards and the Quds Force. Both of those Iranian security organizations have been linked to the assassination plot.

The Iranian government has been involved in international terrorism since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. It has not only slaughtered tens of thousands of its own citizens who wanted nothing more than their rights to a free and democratic society, but has also killed many others, including Americans, Israelis, Arabs, and Europeans.

Four years after the 1983 Marine Corps barracks bombing in Beirut, Iran's then-minister of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rafiqdoost, boasted that "[b]oth the TNT and the ideology which in one blast sent to hell 400 officers, NCOs and soldiers at the Marine headquarters were provided by Iran."

I was working as a CIA spy in the Revolutionary Guards when I reported to the CIA about the Special Forces unit of the Guards setting up safe houses and infiltrating the Muslim communities in Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. The Guards had realized that the notorious Triangle there, with no police presence, made it easy for transferring arms and explosives. In July 1994, with the assistance of the terrorist group Hezb'allah, the Guards attacked a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 and injuring hundreds more.

The current Iranian defense minister, Ahmad Vahidi, is on the Interpol most wanted list for his role in that attack. Many more Iranian officials are wanted not only for the terrorist attack in Argentina, but for attacks and assassinations worldwide.

I revealed back in March that an order by the Islamic regime had gone out for assassination and terrorist acts on Saudi interests worldwide. The Iranian leaders see the Saudi monarch as a rival power confronting their policies in the region and as a threat to their influence in the Muslim world. They also see Saudi Arabia as an active force in destabilizing Syria, where Iran has drawn a red line.

According to sources in Iran, Khamenei held a meeting earlier this year with high Iranian officials, including the Quds Force commander, the chief commander of the Guards, the Iranian intelligence minister, and others, where it was decided to take action against the Saudi monarch, relieve pressure on Syria, and push the envelope as far as possible -- even if it meant engaging the United States in a limited conflict, believing the U.S. has too much on its hands to fully engage Iran.

On Sept. 23, the Islamic regime's theorist and a member of the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, Rahim Poor Azgadi, stated on national television that "[o]ur fighters are present in all five continents of the world and will fight against imperialism everywhere. Today we must get ready for a global operation, and an international jihad must take place to prepare for the coming."

Ironically, one day before the revelation of the recent plot, Mohammad Karim Abedi, a member of Iran's Parliament, boasted that Iranian cells have the capability to attack enemies from within.

Days ago, a source within the Iranian government told the pan-Arab TV news station Al Arabiya that Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, in a recent meeting with Mohammed Nahavandian, former assistant at the Iranian National Security Council, confirmed Iran's involvement in the plot and discussed ways to initiate damage control.

This latest plot stresses the need to be gravely concerned about Iran's nuclear weapons program. The IAEA has stated that Iran currently has enough enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs, and its new report contains credible evidence as to the military aspect of the Iranian nuclear program. This is where the Obama administration has failed with its policies of negotiation and sanctions, which have neither slowed the Iranian nuclear program nor been a deterrent to the regime's aggressive posture.

As I reported in May, Khamenei has ordered the Guards to arm their missiles with nuclear weapons before the current Iranian calendar ending in March of 2012. The Guards have the delivery means of such weapons of mass destruction. America and Israel have no place in the new order in which the Iranian leaders envision the world. We forget that at our peril.

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who requires anonymity for safety reasons. He is a Senior Fellow with EMPact America and the author of A Time to Betray, a book about his double-life as a CIA agent in Iran's Revolutionary Guards, published by Threshold Editions, Simon & Schuster, April 2010.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/11/despite_denial_iranian_assassination_plot_was_hatched_at_the_top.html

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